But, as it turns out, it’s an amateurish look. The Korea Friendship Association is using a webpage template that costs $15.

Take a look at the source code. A keyword search for “envatowebdesign” will turn up a prompt comment from the site’s theme seller telling the person who bought it how to customize. Only whomever built the thing for Pyongyang didn’t bother. It’s a bit like leaving the plastic overlay on your fancy new TV telling you about the screen size. A quick check on the source code of the IgniteThemes “Blender” template confirms that it’s what North Korea built. Price check? $15.

Not exactly a web presence that screams, “We’re an elite nuclear power that must be respected.” In fact, it took a Fordham University computer science undergrad a couple minutes’ sleuthing to determine the embarrassing origins of the site design.

A portion of the telltale source code for North Korea's official website.

Michael DiTanna, a junior at Fordham, got an assignment in his Korean history/political science course to browse North Korean official media and analyze its content. He quickly checked out the webpage — and decided to check under the hood.

“Immediately after visiting the site I noticed the website used some common open source web elements — specifically the main image banner,” DiTanna tells Danger Room. Noticing the “envatowebdesign” marker “gave away the template’s source.” It was a few short steps for him to locate the correct template and note its price. In fact, it took him about 15 minutes — one for each dollar charged for the Korea Friendship Association’s favored template.

“I had to present on this in class and everyone was pretty shocked,” DiTanna says via email.

North Korea’s propaganda website may be as amateurish as its consistent inability to boost a satellite into space. But maybe there’s wisdom in North Korea’s online thrift. Pyongyang’s facing a new round of international sanctions after last week’s rocket launch.

Update, May 1: As this blogger points out, this actually isn’t an “official” North Korean website, although the site quite clearly leaves that impression. It’s a website for the Korea Friendship Association, which claims to be the “first DPR Korea Government webpage in the Internet.” I’ve updated the headline and the text of the post to make that distinction crystal clear.

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